Symptom network topological features predict the effectiveness of herbal treatment for pediatric cough / 医学前沿

Pediatric cough is a heterogeneous condition in terms of symptoms and the underlying disease mechanisms. Symptom phenotypes hold complicated interactions between each other to form an intricate network structure. This study aims to investigate whether the network structure of pediatric cough symptoms is associated with the prognosis and outcome of patients. A total of 384 cases were derived from the electronic medical records of a highly experienced traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) physician. The data were divided into two groups according to the therapeutic effect, namely, an invalid group (group A with 40 cases of poor efficacy) and a valid group (group B with 344 cases of good efficacy). Several well-established analysis methods, namely, statistical test, correlation analysis, and complex network analysis, were used to analyze the data. This study reports that symptom networks of patients with pediatric cough are related to the effectiveness of treatment: a dense network of symptoms is associated with great difficulty in treatment. Interventions with the most different symptoms in the symptom network may have improved therapeutic effects.

A Research on the Discovery Methods in Prescription and Medication Based on Professor Xue Boshou's Clinical Prescription Data / 世界科学技术-中医药现代化

How to discover the valuable knowledge from the large amount of prescription data accumulated in the long-term medical practice of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is one of the important contents of TCM modernization.Based on the prescription data of Xue' s clinical practice of many years,this paper explored the method of combining TCM network and prescription network to find out Xue' s common core drug combination.Based on 9,584 prescriptions in the Hospital Information System of Guang'anmen Hospital of China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences,prescription network and drug network were constructed according to the similarity of prescription composition and drug co-occurrence relationship.Using the complex network analysis methods,such as community analysis method,to analyze the prescription and drug compatibility,the results were evaluated and analyzed by Xue and his successors.As a result,through complex network analysis,126 modular prescriptions and 4 TCM modules were obtained.One of the core components of the prescription module included Xiao Chai Hu decoction,Yin Qiao powder,and Sheng Jiang powder compound addition and subtraction.It was in consistent with the drug composition of exogenous febrile prescriptions excavated earlier.In conclusion,using the complex network methods,we can get some core drug combinations prescribed by Prof.Xue,and achieve the common compound core drug combination for treating diseases with certain vantages,laying a foundation for further inheriting and excavating Xue' s effective experience.